Forgiveness
by Nike1988
Summary: Set in 6x16. What if Kai came to Bonnie's room instead of Damon, when Damon brought him to the party so he could apologize? What if Kai made Bonnie a strange offer she can't resist? Rated T for violence.


**Hey guys,**

 **Thanks for the sweet reviews so far. I just wanted to let everyone know that this story is complete. I forgot to put it in the settings but I changed it now. I'm thinking about writing a sequel if I can come up with a good idea. Suggestions are very welcome :-D**

 **Anyway, enjoy the story and let me know what you think :-)**

 **Forgiveness**

She stormed into her room, anger blasting out of her in an explosion of magic. With one furious movement, a fire blazed in the fireplace. Bonnie couldn't believe that her so-called friend would ask her to even look at the one person that had made her live a living hell, even came close to killing her on several occasions. The nerve on him! She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down but it just wouldn't help, she was still raging. The knock on the door didn't help one bit.

Bonnie refused to answer the door because she was sure she would kill Damon if he tried to apologize right now. However, of course, the door opened anyway – she really needed to remember to lock it behind her – but when she turned around ready to give the vampire the worst migraine he had ever experienced, what she saw caught her by so much surprise that she was paralyzed for a moment. Kai! The evil bastard who had tortured her, almost driven her into suicide and, not to mention, threatened and hurt her friends all in the last few months! Granted, he had tried to apologize not 30 minutes ago, but forgiveness was impossible.

"Bonnie, please, just listen!" he started to plead but she wasn't ready to talk.

"Get out!" she yelled and threw him back against the door with a wave of her hand. The anger manifested in her magic and it hit him with such force that she was sure a few ribs broke when he slammed against the hard wood.

"No" Kai said quietly. He had a sincere look in his eyes but Bonnie wasn't buying it.

"Have it your way." With that she pointed her hand at him and he started writhing in pain, clutching his head but he suppressed any scream. He was no stranger to pain.

"Leave or I swear I will keep going until you're dead."

"Go on then" he gasped and somehow that made her stop for a second. This didn't make any sense. That man had done literally everything in order to live. What was his game?

"You have 30 seconds to explain what you're doing here. If your answer contains the word apology I will throw you out through the window. It's a long way down."

"You can't kill me, you know. Not without killing Jo and Liv and all the other members of the coven as well" Kai answered in the same quiet and soft voice he had used before which didn't fit his character at all. But Bonnie wasn't fooled by it.

"25 seconds."

"Alright, alright" he said raising his arms in defense and slowly getting up from the floor. "Look, I know I'm the last person you wanna see right now but I came here to make you an offer."

"Does it involve you moving to the other side of the planet or jumping off a cliff?"

"Haha, very funny" he said rolling his eyes. "No, I will give you myself. The perfect opportunity to take revenge on me. You can do whatever you want as long as you don't kill me because of the aforementioned repercussions."

That's not at all what Bonnie expected and it took her a moment to digest this strange and twisted suggestion. So, he was looking for her to punish him for what he had done to her? As if there was anything she could do to him that would even come close to what she had been through!

"You're insane! You're not doing this for me, you're only doing this for yourself!" She was yelling again. It was impossible to stay calm.

"What? I just gave you a freebie. I won't fight back, I promise. How am I doing this for myself?"

"I don't know what game you're trying to play here but find somebody else to screw with. I've had enough of that for several lifetimes. You're 30 seconds are up. Leave!"

"No."

Ok, if he didn't want to leave she would have to make him. Another wave of her hand and one of his fingers bent back until the bone snapped. He groaned but looked at her determined.

"I won't go."

There went the next finger.

"You have eight more. Sure you wanna go through all of them? Just get out of here! I don't wanna see you ever again!" How could a single person be so irritating?

"I'm not leaving here until you forgive me."

Words could not cover what Bonnie felt at that moment. There just weren't words for the kind of blind rage she was feeling. Her only outlet was her magic so she just waved her arm furiously without really knowing what would happen. Kai was thrown across the room again and blood started pouring from a deep wound in his torso as if he had been run through with a sword. He pressed a hand to the wound and tried to sit up.

"There you go, let it all out." He was panting and sweat was running down his face. He looked quite pitiful but still had that determined look in his eyes. Bonnie couldn't help but feel manipulated.

"I'm done being your puppet." She turned away from him and stared into the fire.

"Oh, come on. Just admit that it makes you feel better to see me in pain."

If she was really honest with herself, he was right. But she'd rather die than admit that in front of him. She didn't even deign him with a look when she said:

"You don't know me."

"I'll make it easier for you." With these words, he got up - slowly because of his injuries – and took off his coat. Chains magically tied themselves to the ceiling and cuffed his wrists with outstretched arms. Hearing the clinking of the chains Bonnie turned around again, a puzzled look on her face.

"What are you doing?"

"Like I said, I'm making it easier for you. Here I am all defenseless and helpless and – at your mercy." His old self shining through, he couldn't help but grin a little.

It was so tempting. Making Kai suffer the way he had made her suffer seemed like paradise. She was so very angry but she still felt like she was being manipulated.

"There is no way I'm gonna give you what you want. Why would you chain yourself up? I thought you weren't going to fight back? This is just another one of your games and you haven't changed one bit!"

"I have and I want to prove it to you. Let me prove it to you, please!" And there it was again – the sincere look. "Just try it, if it doesn't help, you can stop and I'll leave you alone for good."

"You know what? I'm gonna prove to you that the old you is still inside you. I bet within a few minutes you will break the chains and then my neck." Of course, she wouldn't let it come to that but the prospect of getting rid of him as soon as possible made her consider his suggestion. She just needed to keep up her façade so she wouldn't be so vulnerable in front of him.

"Ok, it's a bet" he said with a very atypical shy half-smile. Maybe it was meant to be encouraging, maybe he was pretending to be nervous. Whichever it was, Bonnie didn't care. She knew the perfect spell so it was all about using it, pretending it didn't make her feel better and throwing him out. All said and done within 5 minutes.

"What was the most painful experience of your life?" she asked him but didn't wait for an answer. In order for her spell to work she needed his mind to leap to any moment that fitted her question. As soon as she finished asking she focused and a second later he started screaming in pain. But it didn't stop, he kept screaming and screaming, he could barely breathe in between. Whatever he remembered, it must have been terrible. However, no matter how hard Bonnie tried to be moral, to do the right thing and reverse the spell, she was enjoying it. It was such a relief, it felt as if the huge weight from her heart was lifted as long as she could see him writhing just for a second longer. Her eyes were watching him gleefully as the sweat soaked his t-shirt. As blissful as this experience was for her, she knew she would have to stop before it killed him, so she pulled herself together and reversed the spell. He slumped into his chains and tried desperately to catch his breath. Nevertheless, being Kai, he couldn't help but comment on what had just happened.

"Ow – that was – quite – somethin'" he panted. "And see – I'm not – even – getting angry. Even though this was – a not so – nice memory."

That was a lie. He was very angry. His jaw was clenched and a vein on his neck was pulsing. The monster inside him was raging and trying to break through. But he kept it caged because this was exactly about that – controlling his urges and showing to Bonnie that he was capable of feeling.

"Shut up! Think of another memory!"

The human mind is a curious thing. The harder we try not to think about something the clearer we see it before our eyes. The same thing happened to Kai. He hadn't quite recovered from the last memory, yet, so he was trying to stall. But his mind jumped right to another painful instant. He started jerking forward almost rhythmically and hissing in pain. The hissing became groaning after a while and then he started crying out again. Suddenly, cuts appeared on his right upper arm and blood was mixing with the sweat on his shirt. The blood seemed to be coming from his back and his chest as well. Bonnie didn't care, she kept going.

"Bonnie – argh – stop, you can't – ugh – kill me!"

She didn't even hear him. The blood now started soaking his jeans as well, his eyes rolled back and he was just about to pass out, when the door flew open and Bonnie was pulled out of her trance. Damon came rushing in and it took him a moment to assess the picture in front of him.

"What the hell is going on here?" seemed like the most appropriate question to ask.

"Oh my God –" Bonnie could hardly breathe. She was shocked to see what she had done. The exhilarating feeling was gone in an instant and left a void. It's not that she felt sorry for Kai – she really didn't – but she had just seen a side of herself she didn't know before. The prison world must've changed her more than she had thought.

"Hey, hey, Bonnie – it's ok." Damon hugged her tightly. "Tell me what's going on." There were tears burning in her eyes but she was determined not to let them out since Kai was still awake and watching the whole scene with great interest even though he was breathing heavily.

"Kai came here to apologize. I wanted to throw him out but he chained himself to the ceiling and asked me to punish him for what he did to me." She kept her voice void of all emotion and slowly started to get a grip again. Of course, Damon being Damon was thrilled to hear that.

"So, do we all get a free shot at him?" he asked grinning cheekily and rubbing his hands together.

"No" Bonnie said in the same emotionless voice. "I'm done here."

"Bonnie, wait" said Kai, "Tell me that you didn't like that and I'll get out of your hair."

"I didn't."

"Oh, but you did. I saw the look in your eyes."

"So, what if I did? It doesn't change what you did to me."

"Man, I would really like some payback!" Damon was still being Damon.

"Shut up, Damon, you're the one who got me into this situation in the first place! Look, what I did!" Bonnie yelled. Damon backed up a few steps, his arms raised defensively. He was now standing next to Kai.

"By the way, what did she do to you? You look like you went three rounds with a mountain lion. Makes me a little jealous of her methods."

Bonnie couldn't bear the nonsense that was going on around her anymore and sat down on her bed ignoring the other two. Kai was anxious to get her back to focus on him but maybe she needed a moment or two to pull herself together. So, he decided to answer Damon's question instead.

"You know, there is this really cool spell where you can make one – in this case me – relive a certain experience. It can be positive or negative depending on what your mind leaps to. Bonnie asked me to think of painful memories. The first one was the day I was sent to the prison world…God, that was unpleasant, felt like my head was exploding and my insides were on fire. My father probably did that on purpose, he always enjoyed punishing me. Anyway, the second memory was one I am particularly fond of. Remember, I told you I tried every method in the book when I tried to kill myself in '94? Well, at first I tried all the quick ones, you know, shooting myself in the head, jumping off a building, etc. But when none of those worked, it got me thinking. What if I wasn't supposed to die quickly? Maybe I needed a substitute for suffering an eternity of loneliness. So, I started trying slower methods and with every attempt I made sure it would take longer. I ended up torturing myself to death, in this particular case by flogging myself. You wouldn't believe how messy…"

"Oh my God, do you ever shut up?!" Damon interrupted him impatiently.

"No" Bonnie said suddenly from the background. "I wanna hear what he has to say. Tell me, what happened to you that made you the sociopathic killer you are?"

She looked at Kai intently not sure whether she really wanted to hear his story. Kai was taken by surprise at the question. He had to think had about the answer. What _did_ make him the way he was? She walked around him and lifted his shirt to see if he was telling the truth so far. But she let it fall back down right away. There was barely an inch of unbroken skin on his back, and in the places it hadn't been broken, she could see deep scars. He didn't even flinch at the touch even though it must've hurt.

"Well, let's see. It wasn't the prison world, cause, duh, I killed before. So, I'm guessing it's my father's fault. He would lock me up, isolate me from the others and punish me whenever I accidently siphoned anyone's magic. You know, it took me a few years to really be able to control this, and sometimes my siblings would be my 'victims'. Of course, little Joey would go crying and telling on me to my father. Whenever that happened, my father would grab me and take me to this room he had in the basement. He would chain me up, all the time making sure he wouldn't touch me directly. At first when I was really young, he would just leave me there for a few hours which soon became days. But when I turned 15 he started punishing me harder since he thought I was old enough to know what I was doing. He was right, of course. But I felt like an addict and I couldn't help but siphon anyone who came close, just to be able to do the same things my sister could do."

His voice had turned soft again, almost sad, nothing like the cheerful tone he had used when he was talking about the ways he had killed himself in the prison world.

"So, at one point he locked me in that room for 3 days without food. I got a glass of water once a day. But I hated him so much, I wouldn't let him break me so I was still talking back to him. On the third day, he came back and asked me whether I had learned my lesson. I was weak and I told him that I had. When he approached me to take the chains off, I made the mistake of siphoning him. Served him right! But he is the leader of the Gemini Coven and I underestimated his power. He could easily shield himself from my siphoning, he put the chains back on and magically ripped my shirt off. That was the first time he whipped me good with electrical wires…"

He trailed off, lost in thought. Bonnie couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him but she would rather eat worms than admit that. She focused hard on keeping her voice steady and monotone.

"So, he stopped you from hurting your siblings. Seems like the right thing to do. Explains the scars on your back. Then what?" she asked.

"Like I said, I was addicted to magic. I couldn't stop, no matter how many times he punished me. I always knew what would happen but still I wasn't able to stop. When I turned 22, he knew that he couldn't let me merge with Jo, so he locked me up again, just cause. I didn't see him for a full week but then he came back and told me that he had a solution for my problem. He had found a spell that would cure me of my siphoning problem by transferring a small fraction of his magic to me permanently. However, it was an experiment and we couldn't be sure it would work. I'm sure you can guess that it didn't work. It felt like I was being ripped apart on the inside but in the end, nothing good came from it. My father was so disappointed that he told me straight away that he would never allow me to merge and that he would wait for Luke and Liv to be old enough. He just left me there and never came back. I'm sure he wanted to let me die down there but the spell had given me a little bit of magic. I was able to break free and that's when I snapped and killed them all. They deserved it and I still have more to go. Can't wait to get my hands on my father."

Kai was lost in his memories. He didn't look at anyone and was just staring blankly, his eyes filled with bitterness and hatred. Bonnie brought his attention back to the present.

"If you think I will feel sorry for you now, you are wrong. You've had a tough time growing up but that doesn't justify murder!"

"I only answered your question. I'm not looking for pity. I'm just being completely honest with you so you can see that I've changed and that I truly am sorry for what I did to you."

"And I will never accept that. I will never forgive you."

Bonnie was calm but firm in her statement. With that she left the room leaving Damon and Kai puzzled.

"Sorry, buddy, you really hurt her. Speaking of, you hurt me, too. Don't I get an apology?" Damon mocked him. Kai rolled his eyes.

"I think you can take a stake through the hand and an arrow in the chest without whining about it."

"Yeah, but it's so much more fun to return the favor."

And he took a poker from the fireplace and stabbed it right through Kai's hand. Kai cried out, he was still a little shaken from Bonnie's spell.

"Damon, stop. The offer was only for Bonnie. Now, for her sake, I'm not gonna do anything to you but I can't guarantee anything if you keep going."

"Too bad" said Damon and stabbed another poker through Kai's shoulder.

That was it, Kai had enough. He focused and gave Damon an aneurism which made his knees give in. Then he magically broke his chains and collapsed as well. He was weaker than he had expected but he only had to hold on a little longer. After taking a minute to catch his breath, he pulled out the pokers and dragged himself out of the room and down the hall where he bumped into Bonnie. They looked at each other.

"So, you're free. Did you come here to kill me for what I did to you?" asked Bonnie. Kai chuckled quietly.

"No." And then he continued seriously. "I deserved every last bit of pain you put me through. Hell, I deserve worse. I know you can't forgive me now. But, please, just think about it. I won't bother you again."

With these words he left, leaving Bonnie confused and conflicted. She couldn't bring herself to forget everything that had happened. But something was different now. She couldn't say what exactly it was. But something had changed. Had he really changed?


End file.
